New Britain Official Complains To Elections Officials About Anonymous Attack Campaign

NEW BRITAIN — — The state elections enforcement commission is investigating a complaint that an illegal campaign is being waged against Mayor Tim O'Brien.

The complaint from Phil Sherwood, an aide to O'Brien, cites newspaper ads and a website, http://www.nobrien2013.com, that hammer O'Brien and his record — but carry no attribution.

There are no declared candidates yet against O'Brien in the November election, and Sherwood's complaint doesn't specify who he believes is behind the campaign. But the ads and website, which include demeaning caricatures and fiery rhetoric, are an attempt to secretively influence the election, he said.

"The ads are an electoral expenditure designed to bring about defeat of a candidate for public office in the upcoming 2013 election and is an unattributed campaign advertisement," Sherwood wrote in a Feb. 23 complaint.

The allegations became public after the elections enforcement commission decided March 20 to investigate the complaint. State law prohibits businesses, organizations, partnerships or political campaigns from publishing unattributed ads either for or against a candidate.

The tenor of politics in New Britain has been rough for decades, but grew particularly brutal after O'Brien and the Democratic council levied fees on landlords.

A statewide property owners association and several large-scale New Britain landlords organized a protest at city hall last fall, and several hundred people showed up — many aboard chartered buses — to condemn O'Brien.

The city confiscated small American flags on wooden sticks that some protestors were carrying, and since then O'Brien and his administration have been besieged by anonymous and vitriolic allegations of dictatorial behavior, ethics violations, "looting," "robbing" and more. The website, for instance, declares that it will soon sell anti-O'Brien t-shirts, and says "All apparel proceeds will go to ousting our communist mayor!"

Under "contact us," the site lists O'Brien's office number. Its final line reads: "This site is not owned by a PAC or 501c, so file all the ethics complaints you want to Sherwood."

Sherwood also contends that a local weekly newspaper, the New Britain City Journal, may be involved.

The newspaper, usually distributed in bundles around the city for free pickup, was mailed to 23,000 homes on weeks when it carried full-page, unattributed anti-O'Brien ads, Sherwood said. His complaint says that may represent "illegal coordination" between the advertiser and the paper.

Robin Vinci, the paper's editor, said Monday that the complaint is "just more nonsense" by the administration and an attempt to discredit her. Since the landlord dispute arose, the paper has run numerous stories suggesting misconduct or deception by O'Brien, along with scathing editorials about him.